So Far Away
by AlessandraLynn
Summary: What happens when you just can't quite let things go, and you'd do anything to get them back? Modern AU. M for sexual themes, language, and drug use.


**This all began when I dug up the song "So Far Away" by Charli XCX and someone in the comments on YouTube mentioned it sounding like Alice in Wonderland on ecstasy. Who was I to leave that idea lying there? **

**I own nothing. **

Alice Kingsley woke with a start, nearly falling off the tree branch she had perched herself in, Dina happily sprawled out on her lap. The young girl was quite bewildered for around half a second as she processed the fact that she was awake, and no longer had to fear for her life after being chased in a dark ocean by playing cards and DoDo birds and that dreadful Queen of Hearts…

"Alice, come on!" Margaret scolded, impatient at the younger girl's daydreaming. "You wanted to come outside to learn today, I don't know why you're not paying attention!"

"Sorry, Maggie!" She chirped back, knowing her sister hated the nickname she had acquired over the past year. "You know I don't like reading books with no pictures in it!"

Alice pouted playfully, her golden blonde hair streaming in a wave down her back, beautifully highlighted against the grey shirt and jeans she was wearing. She swung her worn sneakers over the side so she could slip off the tree and on to the dirt, Dina clasped in her arms.

"Books don't have to have pictures in them to be entertaining, I've told you a thousand times! And stop calling me Maggie!" Margaret groaned. Why must twelve year olds be so irritating?

"Sissy, I'm simply not _mature _enough to like books with just words in them! Not until I've become a stuffy old snob, like you!" The small girl giggled at her sister's frustrated expression before scooping up the books and racing towards the house, nearly dropping the small grey kitten in the process. She hoped it was time for dinner, she was _starving. _Alice had actually missed lunch because she got too deep in thought while wandering in the woods near her home, taken a wrong turn, and couldn't find her way back for nearly an hour. Her mother refused to feed her as punishment, and had suggested that she take a walk with Margaret to study a little more. After all, she must keep her position as best in class if she wanted to go anywhere.

"Mum!" Alice burst through the door to the manor, and quickly kicked off her shoes near the closet. "Mum, where are you!"

"In the kitchen, love, dinner's almost ready!" Her mother's voice echoed down the hall, and Alice raced towards the sound.

"Mummy, you wouldn't _believe _the dream I've just had-"

"Oh, have you fallen asleep now? Darling, you should really try to concentrate more on your studies!" Helen Kingsley sighed.

"But it's summer, it's just not the time for it! Summer's the perfect time for being lazy because I'm not allowed to be other wise!" Alice pouted again, she knew her mother couldn't resist that.

"Alright, you can have this weekend off, but you really need to focus if you're going to start the school year strong." Her mother sighed. "Go fetch your father, tell him we're serving up in a couple of minutes."

"Okay!" Alice raced out of the kitchen and upstairs towards her father's study, pausing to catch her breath before entering.

"Daddy? Dinner's ready." Alice politely informed. Her father was usually very strict towards the children, and she learned at an early age to tread carefully around him.

"Thank you, dear, I'll be down in a minute." Charles Kingsley folded up his newspaper and flexed his stiff fingers as Alice bounced out of the room, hair whipping into a frenzy behind her. After placing the paper neatly on his desk, he strolled downstairs where dinner had been prepared; lemon roasted chicken, spinach and citrus salad, and his favorite bread rolls that Margaret had picked up at the bakery.

"Dad, I was just telling Mum, you wouldn't believe the dream I've just had out in the garden! It was incredibly bizarre! Okay, so I followed a white rabbit in a waistcoat and ended up falling down a rabbit hole that was just _full _of old furniture-"

"Alice, dear, start on your meal first, I know how you missed lunch." Charles reprimanded, sitting down and starting on the chicken. Alice impatiently scarfed down several bites of chicken and nearly swallowed her bread roll whole before continuing.

"So one I fall down the rabbit hole, I fell for a _dreadfully _long time, I was sure I was going to end up on the other side of the earth! But then I landed, and I saw the rabbit disappear through a door. I tried opening it, but there was another door, and one after that, and they just kept getting smaller! I was able to crawl through the last one into a great big antechamber, like the one at Myra's, but there were just _more _doors…"

This continued on for the majority of the meal time, only interrupted a few times by her mother who insisted that Alice eat the rest of her dinner before it got cold. She simply shoved the food down her throat until the plate was empty before energetically continuing where she had left off. For once, the family was not annoyed with Alice's ridiculous imagination, which usually consisted of complaints of their current life and how it would be better if everything were backwards. No, in this one dream, this small, bright adolescent managed to create an entire world to interact with and create her own adventures, though it worried Margaret, who did not like the bit where her sister was nearly sentenced to execution. She simply couldn't bare any thought of slaughtering, it made her her quite ill.

"…So after I ran out of the court room, I'm in that big dark ocean again swimming for my life with the Majesty's army of cards after me, all in a rage. The Hatter and the March Hare and the DoDo bird kept popping up in front of me and just say what they'd said to me before, and absolutely refused to help me! The nerve! But then, the door appeared in front of me and I yanked it open and managed to shut it so none of them could get after me, and then I hit my head on something and then woke up!" Alice slumped into her chair, panting slightly after her energetic story telling. It was no wonder she was exhausted, she'd done quite a bit of traveling in her dream!

"I must say, that imagination of yours is shaping up quite nicely! You'll be a great writer soon, Alice!" Her father gave her one of his rare smiles, which only happened when his children did something unexpectedly brilliant.

"Charles, this simply isn't natural!" Helen complained, having been silent for the past twenty minutes. "If the girl's having such vivid hallucinations-"

"It's only a dream, love-"

"She must be going mad!"

"The girl's only twelve, that's hardly old enough to go mad! You'd have to have a great deal of problems to go mad, and I daresay the child hasn't had any, right Alice?"

"Oh no, Dad, I've never been having trouble with anything!" Alice said quickly, hoping to reassure her mother. It did, if only a little. Alice simply had a wonderful imagination.

The only problem with having an imagination so extensive? It can easily run away from you.

_So far away…_

By the time she was 15, she had filled an entire journal documenting the entire ordeal, along with several more she had dreamed of whenever she was in a deep sleep. She didn't show them to anyone for fear that her family would worry that she really was going mad, having held on to these fantasies for so long, but she enjoyed keeping them to herself, and painfully wished that she could have those more often.

That opportunity came very soon.

Alice had snuck out of her house at around midnight, dressed in tight black jeans with tears in the knee and a glittery silver shirt with tears everywhere, to go to a party hosted by a boy she fancied-if only sexually. Their only interactions had been passings in the hallways at school and quick glances in the classes they shared, but these passings always involved a brush of fingers at the hips, the glances dark and lust ridden.

Alice snapped out of her thoughts as she drew towards his apartment complex, quickly scaling the fire escape to his floor. She quickly smoothed down her straightened blonde hair before sneaking into his window and rushing downstairs.

She certainly heard the party before she saw it; pounding dance music vibrated the walls and settled in her chest while various stages of drunkenness laughed with out care. The smell of alcohol was thick enough to have her hazy before she could even pick up a drink. She could easily see who had been drinking enough that night, as couples and hook-ups and "I have no clue who you are, but you're damn sexy's" sat in every place imaginable tangled in each others arms while engaging in vigorous tonsil hockey.

Alice laughed silently at the scene, having seen it in innumerable TV shows and movies, quickly turning it into a charming smile when she saw Nicolas sauntering across the room towards her. He stopped right in front of her with a smirk on his face, not saying anything.

"Cat got your tongue, love?" Alice joked, hoping the accompanying wink was somewhat sexy.

"Something else" He grumbled, sticking out his tongue to reveal a pale blue pill on the tip.

Knowing exactly what it was, she grinned widely and stuck out her tongue to meet his, Nicolas pulling her into a steamy kiss as the pill transferred from her mouth to hers. His hand slipped up her top and skimmed across her bra strap, all too visible in the practically destroyed t shirt. He gripped her hip as Alice felt the effects of the ecstasy tablet hit her as though she'd been pushed into a cloud.

The whole night turned into a technicolor blur of bodies grinding to the music, along with her and Nicolas' own, throwing back shot after shot of whatever was found in the liquor cabinet, and stumbling into an empty bedroom when lust was easily etched into every line of his face and practically clouded over her eyes. They both knew the other wanted to fuck them, so they didn't bother to stop.

She lost her virginity that night.

After Alice and Nicolas had collapsed side by side on the king bed which had been smothered to disarray, she closed her eyes as the Hatter and the March Hare began to speak in low voices in her ear.

_"Hatter, do you really think this is responsible? No protection? None?" the March Hare reprimanded, not caring about the fact Alice had just lost her last shred of innocence. _

_"Oh, calm down, chap, it's just fun! I think she rather enjoyed it, by the look on her face!" Hatter laughed joyously, simply giddy over the fact that Alice was so full of, well, muchness. _

_And other things, too. _

_"It was quite fun." Alice answered in a haze, barely aware that she was dreaming and curled up next to Nicolas in the physical world. "I knew he was fantastic." _

_"There we go, March, you see?" Hatter clapped, turning an unexpected cartwheel. "It's all in good fun, you stuffy old rabbit!" _

_"I ain't the one who's stuffed here!" March laughed hysterically, falling off whatever he was sitting on and rolling around on his back, his ears getting tangled in a most frustrating knot. _

_The trio continued to make sexual innuendos for around an hour as tea was passed around in dilapidated, worn out mugs that had once been very very beautiful, but dreadfully worn over time. The whole experience felt so REAL to her, as if she had taken a trip into the forest and simply stumbled across the two in the middle of a tea party. _

_She really should figure out what that drug did to her…_

Alice woke in a haze of white at around 5 in the morning due to Nicolas stroking the inside of her thigh and gently kissing over the bite marks he had left on her neck last night. She was slightly relieved that he hadn't deserted her in bed as most boys have been known to do, but stared at her while she slept and smiled lovingly at her still naked form sprawled over the sheets. Any boy could see how lovely she was, and he wasn't one to not appreciate loveliness. She rolled over and pecked him on the mouth before drawing him into a heated kiss full of tongues and touching and whimpering before she gently pulled away.

"I have to get back, Mum'll be furious with me." She whispered, tracing her finger along the sweat that still dripped from his chocolate brown hair. He nodded and kissed her forehead before rolling over and falling asleep again.

Alice stumbled around the room for her clothes and pulled her hair back into a half-assed braid before sneaking out the window and back home. She took a leisurely showering the bathroom off her room, positive no one in her family would be stirred to consciousness at this hour. Heavy sleeping ran prominently through the family line.

She grabbed her journal before she crawled into bed, carefully scribbling down the conversation she'd had with Hatter and March, still clear in her mind as though she'd just come back from their tea party. Looking back on it with more clarity in her mind, she was immensely satisfied at the detail and the humorous banter she had managed to create in her own mind. Smiling proudly, she rolled over and drifted into a deep sleep.

Her family had no clue of her roaming about and losing her virginity and the copious amounts of drugs she had consumed, and she was quite proud of that secrecy; to her, it was her warped idea of growing up.

The following week at school, things changed between her and Nicolas. Passing touches in the hallways turned into passionate kisses that more often than not garnered multiple cat calls, and classroom glances evolved into smiles and winks, both pairs of eyes twinkling.

Alice still managed to keep her grades up until she turned 17, where she blamed the sudden amount of stress and homework in her final year for her gradually slipping grades. The truth is, she often snuck out every weekend to meet up with Nicolas and exchange the ecstasy pills that she had quickly gotten addicted to and fuck until some ungodly hour in the morning before she would sneak back home and journal whatever visions of Wonderland crept into her mind as she slept. As she'd gotten more addicted to the drug, the visions quickly became more realistic and began to connect and intertwine with each other, until an entirely different universe built itself in Alice's brain. She grew addicted to them as well, probably more than she was addicted to ecstasy. Dare I say it, even more than her addiction to Nicolas.

Despite the face that most of her time with him consisted of trips on ecstasy and fucking until they fell asleep, the time that was spent with a clear head was enjoyable, and she really did love him.

She told him so the night before his 18th birthday, when they were simply laying in bed after shagging each other's brains out. Once she got her head clear, she rolled over and stared at him.

"Do you mind if I tell you something?"

"Go for it."

"It might shock you."

"Nothing you do could shock me, love."

"I love you." She reached over and threaded her fingers through his hair as he smiled lovingly at her.

"I love you, too." He leaned over to her and kissed her gently, innocently, as innocently as one could laying naked in bed, their passion still raw from excruciating climax only moments ago.

The second he turned 18, he asked Alice to run away with him. She agreed on the spot.

Her whole family was on an outing while Alice feigned illness to sneak out. She tossed the essentials into a suitcase, left a note on her bed simply stating "I love him. Please understand," and vanished through the forests in her house.

The pair quickly found an apartment just short of being in East End London, where even the tourists knew to stay away from unless you were born and raised there. It was dank, crumbled, and the electricity only worked on a good day, but it was theirs for 300 pounds a month, only at such a low price because the landlord was absolutely desperate to sell it, even to two teenage runaways.

Almost instantly, they managed to score jobs to pay their rent, and Alice took up all day shifts to pay for her ecstasy kick. He loved it when they were both under the effects, because their almost-shitty (it couldn't be completely shitty, they loved each other too much) life turned into something strange and wonderful.

Until the day she finally loved the pill more than she loved the guy.

Nicolas only began to realize it when she preferred fucking him only after she had her kick, and afterwards, she would turn away from him and fall asleep as quickly as possible.

Little did he know what went on in her sleep.

On this particular night, after a rousing game of croquet with the Queen of Hearts, who gradually took a liking to her as she got older, she and the Hatter found themselves in his quaint little cottage sipping whatever had alcohol in it. What happened next could only be expected of a boy and a girl who had too much to drink and were lonely and needy.

He fucked her. Thanks to the ecstasy tablet, it was better than anything Nicolas could ever give her.

He must have heard her, because he deserted her in bed for the first time in the year and a half that they'd been together. He left a note on the bed, saying "Why can't you love me as much as you love the kick?"

She almost couldn't bring herself to care.

_So far away…_

Alice was now 20 years of age, still in the apartment Nicolas had left her in, but managed to find a new roommate; a girl named Naomi who was as addicted to sex as Alice was addicted to the ecstasy. She brought home a different man from anywhere in a 2 mile radius almost every night, but quickly found that the men in East End London were willing to pay the most.

Despite her constant company, the two girls got to know each other well, and Naomi quickly began to rub off on her.

"Nay, are you sure about this?"

"Of course, dear, if you do everything right tonight, you'll earn enough for a whole week's worth!" Naomi stood back from where she was making up Alice's face and smiled in triumph.

The innocent young girl she had been so many years ago had vanished, and in her place was a skinny, sexy woman that any man would drop to their knees for. The smoky eye Naomi had done for her friend gave her blue eyes a sultry sparkle, and the black streaks in her blonde hair giving her that hardcore sexy edge. Naomi had coaxed her into a tight blue dress where her breasts and bum would hang loose if she bent over, because she wasn't wearing underwear, the look polished off with fishnet tights and stilettos that could kill someone.

In short, she was every man's dream.

With a final squeal from the two friends, Naomi dragged her off to her usual corner in East End London where her client stood waiting anxiously, another young man beside him, with black hair and wearing a leather jacket and ripped jeans. He took one glance at Alice and she could have sworn she saw his pants rise up.

This shouldn't be too hard, she'd had sex with Nicolas, and she loved him, so mindless sex should be easy, right?

Right?

"Aiden, hi!" Naomi threw herself on the muscular blonde, kissing him with way too much passion to be publicly acceptable.

"Hey, baby girl, I see you brought another beauty?"

"Uh, yeah, I-I'm Alice."

"I'm West, I'll be screwing you tonight." said the black haired boy, putting an arm around her shoulders and emitting a giggle from Alice.

"Soooo I'll be at Aiden's place, so babe, you can have ours. He knows when to leave, it's okay."

"Awesome, so…I'll see you around." Naomi nodded and pranced off with Aiden, while Alice strolled down the street back to her place, West's arm still around her.

"First time doing this?"

"Yeah, but, I need the money." She bit her lip.

You know, to get her kick.

"No, I completely understand." He smiled as she lead him up to her apartment and up to her bedroom where he promptly discarded her jacket.

Naomi had given her a few tips beforehand, to make him want her as much as possible before they even started anything, and she wasn't about to let her advice go to waste. She gave a sultry smile and reclined on the bed as he sat across from her.

She smiled knowingly at West, pulling down her dress to expose her lily white breasts. He leaned forward and set his mouth to her collar bone as Alice closed her eyes, her mind far from the physical sensation. Yes, she'd definitely have to tell the Hatter about this later.

She found that mindless sex was easy, as the name implied, as it was over in 20 minutes and he left a small fold of pounds on her bedside table, the outermost bill being a 100 pound note. Alice counted the rest up.

300 pounds.

That should definitely get her a week's worth of baby blue pills, maybe more if she offered the dealer a little more than cash…

Alice smirked proudly at her idea before rolling over to go to sleep. She looked forward to the extra haze she would be getting with her new cash and other talents.

For the next couple months, Alice quickly learned new ways from Naomi and got with a new guy every weekend, ranging from fifty-something-tired-of-their-marriage men and hot-shot-I'm-gonna-fuck-a-prostitute-'cause-I-can- twenty-something-men.

She was nearly giddy to receive more supply and take it before she went to bed so she could play croquet with the Queen of Hearts and the March Hare and talk to the Hatter, and then journal it later.

And by talk to him, of course, she meant fuck his brains out nearly every night. In her imagination and under the effects of tiny blue pills, it was better than any man in the real world could do. She so desperately wished it was all real and was always devastated when she felt the pill begin to wear off and was gently roused to a wake.

One month, however, she was running short of clients, and as a result, her supply was low until her dealer could run by and give her a complimentary stash due to…er…persuasion.

Her mind being completely and 100% clear for once, she thought back on her life, and thought of Nicolas.

And boy, was that a mistake.

It all hit her like ecstasy, but instead of a haze, it was mind numbing reality. Why did she have to get addicted, why did she have to keep going, why hadn't she simply TOLD him when she was having problems and could feel her love for him and his love for her slipping in between the cracks because all she wanted was that temporary little haze so she could fuck with a completely imaginary person in her dreams-

Alice sank to the floor in gut wrenching sobs, not bothering to look up from where her head was buried in her arms because she knew what she would see in the mirror; an all too skinny, hallowed eyed girl in some ridiculous outfit that barely covered anything that had lost complete control of her life.

Her dealer rang at the door, and she managed to pull herself together enough to grab the bag of little blue pills, kiss him on the cheek, slam the door in his face, and dash back to her room with them.

She stared at the drug in disgust; how could such happy little blue pills ruin her life so much? She'd lost Nicolas, she was pretty sure she was losing Naomi, she'd even lost control of the men who simply wanted to fuck and leave. Did they no longer want her as well?

In her distraught, nearly hysterical state of mind, Alice managed to think of one place where she would be wanted, who she would be wanted by.

Swallowing hard, she poured one little pill into her shaking hand.

"Hatter, I'm coming for you."

She swallowed it.

And another.

And another.

And another.

She could hear his voice in her ear, welcoming her back.

She took another.

And another.

And another.

And another.

He begged her to stop, she wasn't going to last.

And another. And another.

Andanotherandanotherandanotherandanotherand…

She finally lost herself in the haze she wanted, feeling herself being cradled in the Hatter's arms which felt oh so real, more life like than any other trip she'd taken. He was crying with her as well, the only person she knew of who really cared about her this way, and wanted so desperately to save her, which is more than any other person in reality could say for themselves.

So when Naomi brings home Nicolas in a cruel twist of fate and they find her body on the floor, and Nicolas rushes to cradle her cold form too devastated to make a sound, he wonders what would have happened if he didn't let her drift off and helped her, _saved _her.

Naomi, too, finally understood the importance of the journals she frantically wrote in and clung to, no longer wondering about the strange fantasies she would have while on the drug, that awful drug.

It was where she was wanted, in some place far away where reality couldn't hurt you. But fantasies do hurt eventually, if you go far enough away.

Because once you drift so far away, there's no hope of ever returning.

**I can honestly say this is the most intense piece I have ever written, and I'm actually keen to work on a story where a girl falls in love with a serial killer. **

**And then I write this. CLEARLY I have no problems…**

**Anyways, thanks for reading and PLEASE leave me a review telling me what you think. **


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